Palm Springs: Hatred on the Agenda

Posted on January 8, 2003 in California Watch Hatred

MJ of Friday Fish Wrap reports that one item on the agenda of a community meeting to which she has been invited is “Too Gay?” She shot off an angry letter to the organizer and when he identified himself as gay, shot off yet another one.

Oh sigh. This sounds just plain silly. Hatred should never be an issue at any community meeting. I wonder how the complainers would feel if someone put an item like “the Fundamentalist problem” on the agenda. You can bet they’d have the pickets out and be crying to the media about “freedom of religion”.

This sounds, in fact, like Government promotion of religious morality. It may be fair to discuss the items that particularly irk people that MJ lists in her blog such as clothing optional guest houses, white parties, parades and leather bars. (For example, if people object to nudity in someone else’s backyard, they might rightly request an ordinance requiring that the area be screened off. I have no idea what a “white party” is. As for leather bars, the issue should be bars in general — they’re all crime magnets!) Or violence against anyone because of their views on homosexuality. This singling out strikes me as Wimpocratic politics: the Right whines and you give them a few hours to spout their homophobia, meet others like them, exchange addresses, and organize a voting bloc to find new ways to undermine majority rule and minority rights.

I am thinking, more and more, that the Constitution may need a rewrite or an amendment to make it darn clear that there’s a right of privacy and no right to using any government agency or function as a vehicle for hatred.